Page 26 - Irving Collection Part II Chinese Art

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L A C Q U E R • J A D E • B R O N Z E • I N K T H E R V I N G C O L L E C T I O N 髹金飾玉 - 歐雲伉儷珍藏

“ The Irvings have been inspirational donors in building
the Museum’s collections and galleries of Asian Art since

1987. We are profoundly grateful to the Irvings for their
tremendous generosity and vision.”

DANIEL WEISS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

they became two of the most signifcant patrons in people of New York is like moving their cherished
the history of the institution. “We wanted to share our possessions to a larger and more public second home.”
collection with the greatest number of people,” Mrs. The couple’s additions to the Met’s permanent
Irving said, “and for that, there’s no place like the Met.” collection and their tremendous fnancial generosity
were recognized by the 1994 naming of the Florence
The Irvings’ connection to the Metropolitan Museum of and Herbert Irving Galleries for South and Southeast
Art began in the late 1980s, when they began to foster Asian Art; the 1997 naming of the Florence and Herbert
relationships with director Philippe de Montebello and Irving Galleries for Chinese Decorative Arts; and the
Asian art curators Wen Fong and James C.Y. Watt. The 2004 naming of the Florence and Herbert Irving Asian
trio, justifably astonished by the couple’s extraordinary Wing. “It is indeed both a privilege and a pleasure to
private collection, were equally impressed by their re-designate these galleries in [the Irvings’] name,”
aspirations to exhibit it publicly. Mrs. Irving agreed to Philippe de Montebello declared in 2004. “They will
join the museum’s Visiting Committee on Asian Art, and serve as a perpetual reminder… of the extraordinary
in 1990 was elected a Met trustee. The following year, impact the Irvings have had on this Museum. And
the museum staged East Asian Lacquer: The Florence they will guarantee the pursuit of excellence and
and Herbert Irving Collection, an “intense, quietly innovation in the felds of art they have devoted their
stunning show,” in the words of New York Times critic lives to advancing.”
Roberta Smith, that showcased nearly two hundred
examples and six centuries of Chinese, Japanese, and In addition to underwriting museum acquisitions,
Korean lacquerware. Within a decade of acquiring their curatorial positions, exhibitions, and gallery spaces, the
frst lacquer piece in the early 1980s, the Irvings had Irvings also funded a new reading room and a librarian
succeeded in building the most important lacquerware position at the Met’s Thomas J. Watson Library. In 2015,
collection in the West. East Asian Lacquer not only in honor of the centenary of the museum’s department
honored this achievement, but celebrated the couple’s of Asian art, the couple donated another 1,300 works
promised gift of their lacquerware to the Met for the to the permanent collection, a grouping that spanned
beneft of scholars and enthusiasts. fve millennia and all major cultures of East and South
Asia. Few things gave the Irvings more pleasure than
The Irvings’ lacquerware bequest would be joined seeing the impact of their generosity at the Met. “I’m
by other major gifts to the Met of Asian ceramics, thrilled,” Mr. Irving said, “when I walk into the Great Hall
metalworks, sculpture, and other works. “For [the and see wall-to-wall people.” Their unwavering altruism
Irvings],” Anita Christy wrote in Orientations, “giving the culminated, in 2017, with a transformative gift of $80
collection to a museum that belongs to the city and the million to the museum—its largest donation in recent

24 P A R T I I